Move over Netflix! Racy two-minute 'microdramas' take off with mums - who kill time on the school run by binge-watching steamy series on their phones
Got a couple of minutes to spare in the supermarket queue, or on the school run? That's all you might need in the not-too-distant future to conquer episodes of the world's biggest - and sexiest - shows, as the trend for watching 'microdramas' grows ever more popular. Described as 'OnlyFans for the female gaze' - because of how addictive it is, the short-form, made-for-mobile content has found its strongest audience among time-poor viewers, including bored mums looking for bursts of TV excitement.The bite-size series, watched in digestible instalments that generally last between one and 15 minutes, are already hugely popular in China and South Korea and the industry is booming so quickly, it's expected to be worth around £21billion by 2030.While streaming giants such as Netflix aren't yet on board - most microdramas are watched via apps such as ReelShort, DramaBox and PocketFilms, it's likely only a matter of time before tiny TV shows go mainstream.Sitting somewhere between social media and conventional streaming formats in the TV landscape, they're known as 'vertical' series, because they're made predominantly for a smartphone audience.While episodes may be succinct - collectively one show can span 60 episodes or more - crucially, they don't shy away from racy sex scenes and jaw-dropping cliff-hangers - and often require a paid subscription to access a season's tantalising finale. How does 57 episodes of My Secret Agent Husband sound? The gay microdrama - consisting of episodes lasting just a few minutes each - has gained a legion of fans, often femaleEscapism dominates, with popular microdramas often having salacious titles including Dominated by My Dad’s Boss, Secret Surrogate to the Mafia King and My Secret Agent Husband.And there's often more than a whiff of Heated Rivalry - the 2026 Netflix gay male hockey romance that has seen more women watching it than men - about many of them.My Secret Agent Husband, for example, has 57 episodes and is described as a romantic thriller, with gay male protagonists leading the action. The plot follows the story of wealthy heir Lucas who escapes an arranged marriage by announcing his engagement to male secret agent Wyatt. What Lucas doesn't know is Wyatt is covertly investigating his family, and is poised to expose their corrupt financial dealings. A sequel, My Secret Agent Husband 2, followed last year. Elsewhere, microseries Spark Me Tenderly does a good impression of 50 Shades of Grey...in 30 episodes. The show sees central character Floris interviewing billionaire playboy Mr Brighton - but there isn't too much talking as their office meeting takes a steamy turn. Sounds familiar? Microdrama Spark Me Tenderly sees an appointment turn into a steamy office trystHow much theatre do you get in an episode? Plenty - in the first episode of My Secret Agent Husband, for example, which is streamed via Dramabox, there's a forced marriage and the introduction of a fake boyfriend within just 3 minutes and 49 seconds.So far, China has been the biggest producer of microdramas, with their microdrama market hitting $7billion in 2024, according to CNBC.Vertical dramas have proved incredibly lucrative in the country due to their 'freemium' model, which involves making the first few episodes free on social media, before paywalling the rest once viewers have been hooked.Last year, The Washington Post reported that vertical streaming apps are now beating Netflix, Hulu and Paramount+ in user growth.'After a long day at work, you don’t want to think about anything,' one fan told the publication.'We’re watching them to kind of escape everything else in life.'And it's not just new content that's getting the microdrama treatment; Hollywood classics are being sliced and diced into the short-form format. Released in 1927, The Lodger was Hitchcock's first thriller and established him as a key director in the genreAlfred Hitchcock's 1927 thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog hit mobile screens in the US, thanks to British app Tattle TV.The short episodes are designed to appeal to dwindling attention spans, as more viewers struggle to sit through feature-length films or full-length TV episodes.To repurpose The Lodger, Tattle split the 90-minute film into dozens of bite-sized reels that can be watched on phones.Tattle said that the move is 'one of the first known instances of a classic feature film being fully reframed for vertical, mobile-first consumption'.The streaming app used 'cutting-edge AI tools' to turn the classic film, which is not only silent but also black and white, into iPhone-friendly content.While the move is undoubtedly innovative, film purists have been outraged by what they see as the butchering of a classic.'If you can't sit down and watch a 90 minute movie I feel sorry for you,' commented one.Another wrote, 'This is so incredibly bleak,' while a third commented, 'Reframing Hitchcock into a microdrama sounds less like innovation and more like we’ve officially lost our collective attention span.'
